Sabrina was going to be late. It seemed a little stupid to bewail three minutes to one’s part time shift at a coffee house but she was intent on proving to Atlantis just how conscientious and competent she truly was. She wanted to be trusted to do important things like Josie or Sydney. She wanted to show Bonnie that she was a truly talented witch and wanted to keep Ambrose from worrying about her every single minute of the day.
But she couldn’t even be on time for her shift. As soon as she broke into a quick run, however, she felt something grip her feet and hold her fast. The only thing that kept her from eating concrete was a quickly muttered incantation. When she gained her balance, she looked down and frowned. Nothing was there. Just a concrete sidewalk. Another incantation … nothing. She tried another. Still nothing. Salem had caught up to her by the time she was on her third.
He gave a plaintive meow and she shook her head. “I haven’t got any idea. Nothing works. Will you find help?” Backing away only a few paces, the black cat turned and bounded back the way they came, tail a straight arrow.
Josie shared a lot of Sabrina’s frustrations, in all honesty. She was training as a floating field agent, but she hadn’t been sent on any missions yet and she hadn’t been let anywhere near Stefan until after he’d turned his humanity back on. Hope had gotten to help, but Josie had just gotten to sit around and feel helpless. She’d done her part to help with warding people’s homes and workplaces, but it still didn’t feel like she was being trusted to do anything real. She was 17 now, but so many people still treated her like she was seven or at least that was how she felt.
She’d been on her way back from Coffee Me Better with some coffee and plans to do some studying when the black cat trotted right up to her. “Hey, Salem,” she said with a soft smile as she crouched down to scratch behind his ears. He meowed kind of impatiently at her before turning and starting in the direction he’d came from only to stop and look at her. It didn’t take a cat whisperer to guess he was clearly trying to tell her something.
Shrugging, Josie decided to play his game and follow him. She nearly had to jog to keep up, but when she came across Sabrina, it became a little more clear why Salem had been acting so weird. “Hey, are you... uh, you’re just standing in the middle of the sidewalk.” Her first instinct was to look up, but of course there was no mistletoe floating above them. Everything around them looked normal, except for Sabrina standing there in the middle of the walkway.
As Salem had trotted away, Sabrina made a good show of appearing just too involved in her phone so that the people walking by her wouldn’t suspect the truth. She also didn’t want to answer to just any adult. (And hoped Salem’s tastes would be discriminating.) So when Josie appeared, Sabrina gave a very ungainly yelp.
“I’m so glad you’re here. So glad! I’m stuck. I can’t move!”
“It’s not mistletoe, so I guess a kiss won’t get you out of it,” Josie half-teased. She could sense some kind of magic, but it was obviously something Sabrina hadn’t been able to break herself and Atlantis magic could be really freaking unpredictable.
“Is it your whole body or just, like, part of you that you can’t move?” she wondered aloud. That might help them figure out where to start with getting her free.
Sabrina snorted -- “Josie, you would only have to ask,” was her quip back to her friend. Salem sat next to the two girls and started cleaning his paws. “Good question. Let me confirm …” She attempted to free herself again and gave a nod.
“It’s just my feet. I tried taking my shoes off before you were here and no dice.”
“Let’s get you free first,” Josie teased back at her. She couldn't help rolling her eyes at Salem when he just sat there grooming himself. Typical cat. “I'll tell you about the time I had to kiss a cute boy to get out of a trap.”
Squatting down by Sabrina’s legs, Josie felt around for the source of the magic. There was definitely something there and she closed her eyes, siphoning some of the magic away. Opening them again, she looked up at Sabrina. “Did that do anything?” she asked her.
“ … oh you did? How did it go?” It had been a while. And it had been Harvey. Between this and being stuck, Sabrina preferred to focus on her friend’s antics. When she siphoned the magic, she noticed she was able to move a bit more. She reached down and pulled with her hands at her knee and managed to pry one leg free. She placed it safely on the grass and grinned.
“Um, it had better have gone well because anybody would be so lucky to kiss you.”
Josie blushed and bent her head as she worked on siphoning more of the magic away now that she knew it was working. “Oh, uh, it doesn’t really matter, because Lizzie has dibs.” She didn’t mention that Raf had gone to their Sweet Sixteen party as Lizzie’s date. Which Josie had missed because she was busy being buried alive by their possessed zombie bio mom. “I mean, it worked. He was a werewolf, so I was able to siphon enough magic from the kiss to get us free. That’s the only reason I did it.” Mostly, it had been. Josie really had liked Raf, but Lizzie had claimed him first and that had been before she no-voted Landon staying. Any chance she’d ever had with Raf before that was definitely gone once she did that.
“ … awkward.” Sabrina couldn’t really imagine living life with a twin. And it seemed like Lizzie took a lot while Josie gave a lot more. She also hated that her first experience with a boy had everything to do with having to save her life instead of actually enjoying it. “The sister thing, I mean.” Salem made a sound that sounded like the cat version of an eyeroll.
“You are really sweet and beautiful, Josie. You deserve to be kissed for the fun of it.”
It wasn’t like Raf had really been her first kiss. That honor went to Penelope Park unless you counted ridiculous party games, which she totally didn’t, and that was another mess of complicated that Josie definitely didn’t want to get into, so she just offered Sabrina a smile. “Thank you,” she said simply before focusing again on the magic that held Sabrina there. She closed her eyes to focus on pulling the last bit of magic out of the trap and then opened them, looking up at Sabrina again. “Okay, try now,” she said, pretty confident it was going to work.
Sabrina leaned onto one leg and lifted the other; it came loose with a loud smack. The other did quite quickly and she jumped away from the spot on the pavement and wrapped Josie in a fast hug. Sabrina missed her friends in Greendale; but it was precisely people like Josie that helped Atlantis feel like home. It was a place she wanted to stay and a place where good could be done.
She squeezed tightly before stepping back. Salem wound around both girls’ ankles. “Seriously, you’re amazing. Thank you. I definitely owe you a caramel macchiato.”
Josie grinned back at her. “I’m just glad it worked. Do you want to go get a coffee now or do you have to be somewhere?” she asked. She knew Sabrina had a job in Atlantis, outside of school, just like she did, but if she was free, it would be nice to hang out for a while.
“ … well, my shift started like an hour ago? That’s where I was going. But I’m not planning on doing anything other than making you a coffee and trying to sit still. We need to celebrate,” Sabrina said and reached out, offering Josie her hand. It seemed that every time she started missing her Greendale friends and family, Atlantis reminded her of her found family here in Atlantis.